


The Fall of the House of Shimada

by Sath



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 19th Century, Demons, Guilt, Haunted Houses, M/M, Maryland Gothic, Steampunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 07:17:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9167902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sath/pseuds/Sath
Summary: Jesse McCree isn't in the business of saving monsters, but the Shimadas make him want to try.





	

_November 26 th, 1881_

_Baltimore, Maryland_

_Dear Mr. Jesse McCree,_

_You have acquired quite the reputation for killing monsters. I am writing to you with the hope that you may also know how to save one._

_My elder brother suffers from a strange affliction of mind and body. I dare not speak more deeply on the subject in a letter, but I promise you that his condition falls into your area of expertise. As the current head of Shimada Exports, you will find me quite wealthy, enough to satisfy any discomfort you may experience traveling by rail from New Mexico to Maryland._

_A final note, should you decide to come: do not be alarmed at my appearance._

_Yours respectfully,_

_Genji Shimada_

McCree nearly didn’t take the job. He wasn’t in the habit of ‘saving’ monsters, and Baltimore was a long way to go to disappoint someone. But there was a fat wad of cash in the envelope and the heady suggestion of a lot more where that came from. Besides, McCree had never seen the Atlantic.

So that was how McCree came to travel nearly two thousand miles. Baltimore was older than any city out West, and McCree felt it the moment he stepped off the train. Rainier, too, and humid as Texas without having the fine point of not being cold. McCree drew his serape tighter around his neck and hailed the first cab he saw.

“Howdy there,” McCree said, tipping his hat to the cabbie as he reined his horses to a stop. “I have a need to see Mr. Shimada of Shimada Exports; reckon he lives a little out of town.”

“Need, you say?” asked the cabbie. “Nobody got a need to see Mr. Shimada, at least nobody I’d want to give a ride to.”

The cabbie moved to urge the horses on, but McCree caught his wrist. “I’ve got four honest dollars sayin’ you would very much like to give me a ride, sir.”

Looking down at the money in McCree’s hand, the cabbie licked his lips and nodded. “Hop in, but I’m not taking you all the way. That house is cursed.”

McCree settled in the carriage, feeling confined by how small everything was on the East Coast already. “I’m in the business of curses.”

“Sounds like a bad business,” the cabbie replied, snapping the reins. The carriage lurched forward.

“Sometimes. I like it fine. What’s got you riled about the Shimadas?”

“No one’s seen either of the brothers in years. Might not be so strange in itself; they’re rich enough not to have to go to work, if you know what I mean. Except Genji—that’s the youngest—was always in town, raising hell. Not a house of sin in Baltimore hadn’t seen Genji Shimada. Then Shimada senior goes to the grave, and a little after, Genji drops off the earth.”

“So the eldest got the company?”

“That’s the thing, cowboy. Hanzo didn’t. Grocer swears that Genji’s the one signing all the checks.” The cabbie was quiet for a while as they made their way out of the city, as if it weren’t right to keep the conversation going where other people could hear. When he started talking again, it was as they started on a muddy road into the country. His voice hushed, the cabbie said, “All their servants are gone. The butler hung around a little longer than the rest, arranging for the Shimadas like they’d all died. Now there’s standing orders for all food to be delivered straight to the manor. And the _kind_ of food…  offal, most of it, bloody as it can get. There’s something dark in that house, and that’s not a thing happens to the undeserving, if you follow me.”

McCree was starting to get some idea of Hanzo’s ‘affliction.’ As for Genji, McCree didn’t know what to expect. Oh well. He probably should’ve eyeballed the Atlantic before setting out for the Shimada house.

The road sloped downwards as the air grew heavier; they were in marshland now, where everything smelled like mold and birds that were mostly leg ate everything else that moved. At least there weren’t gators up in Maryland. It was peculiar that the Shimadas would have made their home out here, when there was plenty of better land to buy with their money. Private people, McCree supposed. The type of people who bring curses with them.

“This is as far as I’ll go,” said the cabbie, drawing to a stop at a looming wrought-iron gate. ‘HOUSE OF SHIMADA’ was lettered into the arch, along with some Japanese characters McCree had no hope of reading. Weathered bronze dragons guarded each side of the gate, wrapping themselves sinuously around the frame. “Four hundred dollars won’t make me take you one step further.”

“Thank you kindly,” McCree replied. Stepping out of the carriage, he almost sank into the muck with the first step. The cabbie hightailed it back towards town, leaving McCree in the cheerful company of the Shimada family manor beyond the gate.

It resembled the exact kind of house to hide something terrible in. McCree didn’t like looking at it for very long, which didn’t change the fact that he aimed to stay in it. The Shimadas had built, and built, and built, leaving an off-kilter ode to structural orneriness. Its façade was in bad repair, with chipping paint and some decidedly wobbly looking balcony railings. All the windows above the first floor were completely blacked out with drapes, giving the impression that there were a dozen lidless eyes staring out at McCree.

Unsurprisingly, the gate was unlocked. It squeaked loudly as McCree pushed it open, disturbing a few crows that irritably flew off. He walked up to the house, one hand resting lightly on his gun. Then he rapped his knuckles against the door.

“Mr. Shimada? It’s Jesse McCree,” he called out.

He waited a few moments before he knocked again, hoping he hadn’t crossed the country just to be ignored.

“Mr. McCree,” said someone from behind the door, his voice accented, “I must remind you that if I open this door, you are not to be startled and use the gun I am sure you have your hand on.”

“If you keep buildin’ it up like this, Mr. Shimada, I’m going to expect nothing less than a dragon when you finally let me in.”

The door swung open, and McCree was face to face with an impassive steel mask. It had been shaped to look like what McCree assumed were Genji Shimada’s own features, with tinted lenses concealing his eyes. And like the gentleman he was, Genji was covered head to toe. Even the skin of his neck was hidden by a fancily tied cravat. Not too startling, really, but certainly odd.

“I’ve seen a lot worse,” McCree said. “For one thing, your head is still attached to your body.”

Genji laughed, his mask adding a tinny echo to the sound. “My apologies for the disappointment. People usually react quite badly, because they are afraid I am hiding something horrible.”

“You telling me you ain’t?”

“I am content as I am,” Genji replied with a small bow. “Please come in, Mr. McCree. Would you like some tea or coffee?”

“Coffee’s fine, thank you.”   

As he followed Genji into the house, McCree tried not to gawk. He’d been in plenty of fine houses in San Francisco and Sacramento, but this one showed all the rest up with pure black atmosphere—and all those homes McCree had visited were haunted. Light seemed to give up on shining through the windows, and the wolfs-head chandelier was draped in spiderwebs thick as Spanish moss. When McCree turned his head to see that where a regular magnate might have just put up a picture of himself and a train, the Shimadas had ornamented their home with a massive scroll painting of demons and hellfire.

Pausing in front of the scroll with his hands clasped behind his back, Genji said, “My mother was devout. She spent her last few months praying to Amida Buddha to deliver her from an eternity of hell. I once tried to replace the scroll with something more cheerful, but my brother hung it back up in the night. He must feel a need to contemplate it.” 

Anyone contemplating that thing certainly got no comfort. In one corner, a half dozen of the dead screamed, torn open by giant hornets as they floundered in a river. Another part was filled with naked souls who tried to fill their hunger-swollen bellies with flame. The scroll was certainly creative in all its torments. Some of the preachers back in Santa Fe could’ve taken notes. McCree was glad when Genji turned towards the kitchen and he could blink the scroll out of his mind.

The kitchen, by virtue of not being meant for the masters of the house, was an ordinary sort of space that didn’t raise McCree’s hackles. Genji told McCree to take a seat while he fiddled with a strange glass contraption which apparently brewed coffee. He couldn’t help noticing that with Genji’s faster movements, little vents of steam escaped his shoulders.

“It’s suspicious,” said McCree, “seein’ the master of the house in the kitchen. Where’d the servants go?”

“They were eaten, Mr. McCree.” Genji’s tone was entirely matter-of-fact.

“You certainly don’t beat around the bush. Who ate ‘em?”

“My brother, Hanzo. That is why I’ve called you here.”  

So McCree would have to work for the rest of that paycheck. “Mind if I light a cigar?” he asked. “And I think you should start at the beginning, Mr. Shimada, rather than getting to the man-eating right away.”

Genji put an ashtray and a cup of strong coffee in front of McCree. It was awkward enough being waited on by regular staff, but from a gentleman like Genji it felt downright uncomfortable. Keeping up appearances meant everything to rich folk, and McCree supposed it must be better to serve a guest yourself than to leave him hanging. He struck a match off the table and lit up, taking a deep inhale to clear his head.

“My family immigrated from Japan some twenty years ago,” Genji said, taking a seat across from McCree. He took no coffee for himself, leaving McCree with the question of whether Genji could still drink at all. “They were yakuza—gangsters. But when we first came to Baltimore, my parents began a legitimate business, exporting oysters to England. We did well, for a time. But it took only a few bad seasons for my parents to return to their former habits. I was so wrapped up in my own thoughtless pleasure-seeking that I did not even notice how everyone had changed.”

McCree had a hard time imagining the reserved person in front of him raising ten degrees of Cain. Baltimore seemed awfully tightly wound if Genji could make it blush.

“Hanzo, ever the obedient son, tried to dissuade me from my rakery when our parents could not. He pleaded with me, then raged. I did not think the business very serious. As the youngest, I would not inherit. And what did reputation matter in America? My father played at being harsh, but I knew he would never punish me. When he died, I lost my protector. The elders of my house—those who had stayed in Japan—convinced Hanzo that I must be reformed, or eliminated.”

“Hold on a moment,” said McCree. “I’m pretty sure I know where you’re goin’ with this, but I need to get one thing straight first. Your family decided they’d rather you be dead than chasin’ after tail?”

“It was slightly more complicated than that. I shirked my duties to the family in favor of bars and gambling dens. I did not want to be a gangster, Mr. McCree.”

The black sheep of the family was starting to sound like the only Shimada with any sense.

Quieter now, Genji said, “My brother tried to kill me. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that he succeeded, because I am not the man I used to be. I was found by our butler, who saw my broken body take a breath and carried me to a certain Dr. Ziegler, whose reputation as a mad scientist is entirely unearned. She saved my life, but her medicine left me too changed for polite company. But when I returned to this house after a long recovery, I found that I had been the least affected by my ‘death.’ I have forgiven Hanzo. He will not forgive himself, and his actions have cursed him to wear a demon’s flesh.”

Ziegler? McCree had heard that name before, out in Los Angeles. His last week there was a blur of bad memories he didn’t examine sober. “I’m sorry, Mr. Shimada.”

“It is in all in the past now,” Genji said with a wave of his hand. “Except for my brother’s condition. Our family has always been close to what you Americans would call the supernatural. Hanzo has gotten too close. I know it is guilt that holds him in his form. He will not listen to me, no matter how many times I try. I need you to talk to him in my stead.”

“Talking is the last thing anyone ever hires me to do,” McCree replied.

“I am quite aware of that. But after the incident with the servants, I don’t trust anyone to approach Hanzo who cannot defend himself.”

“And what’ll happen if defendin’ myself ends with Hanzo dead?”

Faster than McCree could track, Genji sliced through the bottom of the coffee cup with a blade McCree hadn’t even seen on him. The coffee was hardly disturbed, resting on the table as if it had always been short a bottom. “That run in the family?” McCree asked, acting as if he hadn’t just had a mild heart attack.

“Yes. But Hanzo has given up the sword. Now he has only his appetite.”  

“Well damn, I think you just offered to double my fee.”

“That’s fine. I have no more need for wealth.”

 

* * *

 

Genji gave McCree a tour of the house, reciting some sad little memory at almost every corner. Here’s the first place where his mother collapsed and coughed up blood. Ah, Genji added, and here is the window where my father would drink, after my mother passed. That crack in the paneling? Hanzo left it behind after reading a telegram from Japan. One of the maids, an Irish girl named Maeve Faherty who sent her wages back to her family each week, had liked to sing as she swept the floors. Genji sent the Fahertys several hundred dollars and a lie about their daughter dying in an accident.

There was an awful lot of baggage in the house for just two people. Hanzo, McCree learned, rarely came inside, and did most of his demonic lurking out on the grounds. He kept observing Genji closely, unable to stop himself from making comparisons to his last glimpse of Reyes in Los Angeles. But Genji was human in spirit, even if he might not be quite a man underneath the mask. Reyes had become nothing but darkness, spilling over the broken levee of his sanity. 

Who knows, maybe if McCree got enough experience talking down guilt-ridden demons, he could go back and save Reyes.

“Are you in the habit of reading, Mr. McCree? I am afraid there is not much to entertain you here if you are not. Many of the books here are in English.”

“Can’t say I am. Don’t worry about me; I can keep myself busy with one thing or another.” When Genji’s shoulders slumped in response, McCree said, “You must be bored as hell, locked up in here all the time.”

“I occupy myself as I can.” He seemed to stand a little straighter, not that McCree could tell anything about Genji for certain. “I am translating the works of the monk Zenyatta from Sanskrit to English. It gives me serenity.”

“Hanzo ever have much of that?”

It took Genji a few moments to find his reply. “I wouldn’t know. My brother has always kept to himself. I fear that he was never particularly happy.”

Genji left McCree to settle into his room. There was a thick layer of dust over everything, especially the bedspread. He was keeping the whole house on his own, but Genji was still a rich kid who didn’t realize that dust happens, and you’ve got to take care of it. McCree unpacked what little he’d bothered to take with him from Santa Fe—just a few clean shirts, really—and did his best to air out the room before the dust gagged him.

Jesse McCree, demon soother and amateur housemaid. It was past time for him to get to the first part of his new job.

He felt a creeping weight lift from his shoulders when he went outside. The garden was overgrown, half gone back to the swamp it had been before the Shimadas came. A small corner of it was still being maintained, with the grass clipped short and a charming little creek running through it. McCree decided he would treat Hanzo like a stray dog, sitting down in the garden so Hanzo could come to him in his own time. The elder Shimada was probably as desperate for company as the younger one. Genji had taken away Hanzo’s best entertainment when he didn’t replace the servants Hanzo had killed.

McCree rested his back against a large rock and pulled his hat down over his eyes, intending to think.

 

* * *

 

Thinking turned into napping. The dwindling light from the setting sun woke him up, just in time to hear a fallen twig snap behind him. McCree pretended to still be asleep. If Hanzo tried to attack him, he’d learn how quickly McCree could draw his gun.

“I know you’re awake.” The speaker’s voice was deeper than Genji’s, and already sounded a lot fuller of himself. “I could have killed you three times over by now, if I had wanted to.”

“Would you have done me like you did the servants?” McCree asked, pushing his hat back up. “Eating me after?”

“I took no pleasure in it.”

Hanzo was still hiding out of sight, probably only a few feet away. “You did it, though,” said McCree.

“Is this how you usually pursue monsters?” Hanzo replied, sounding amused. “By talking to them?”

“Usually I just kill ‘em.” McCree rested his hand on his gun to make sure that Hanzo got his point. “But your brother won’t have it, so we’re gonna chat.”

“I listened to your conversation with him. Genji should have learned better how to hold a grudge.”

“He still believes you can be saved.”

“Like he was?” Hanzo laughed bitterly. “I took everything from him except his mind, and even that is tainted by Ziegler’s arrogant quackery.”

There was that name again. The tall blonde woman who’d spent hours with Reyes as he was dying. Morrison had kept saying they should put Reyes down, but Ziegler, covered in Reyes’s blood and God knows what else, refused to move. McCree got there just in time to draw his gun and march Morrison out as Reyes fled. “Someone’s got to put him down,” Morrison had said.

Back in the present, which was what McCree should be worrying about, Hanzo was still pacing behind the rock, out of sight. He let Hanzo work some of his energy off—being in mortal peril kept McCree patient. If McCree rose to his feet, Hanzo would probably tire of their game and attack outright.

“Are you bored, Mr. Shimada? Is that why you haven’t bitten out a chunk of me yet?”

“You are not particularly interesting.” Now that smarted.

“That so?” McCree took out his revolver and spun the chamber before snapping it back in. Since Hanzo was so eager to cut McCree down, he could return that in kind. “I’ve traveled all over the United States. You’re only got a house to run around in. I think you’re the one that’s got no interest for me outside of a paycheck.”

“You would find me very interesting if you saw me.” Hanzo’s voice was closer now; McCree could practically feel his breath on his neck, setting off a distinctly unprofessional shiver.

“Is that a threat or a promise? Either way, sounds like flirtin’.”

McCree tensed. Hanzo had to do something now that McCree’d run his mouth off.

“You should take this seriously,” Hanzo growled.

“I am.”

A long silence told McCree that he was alone. Nothing for it but to go back to the haunted house.

 

* * *

 

As McCree expected, Genji was in the library. He had a scroll open in front of him and was slowly writing in Japanese.

“I met your brother,” said McCree.

Turning towards McCree with his eerily blank face, Genji replied, “How is he?”

“Doing a fair impression of the trials of Cain. I may have offended him.”

“That’s likely. What did you say?”

“I said he sounded flirty.”

Genji laughed. “Perhaps he did. You should continue your seduction.”

“Good lord,” McCree said, thrown completely off-guard. “I can’t ever figure if you’re serious or not with that thing on your face.”

“It would not help you much if I took it off. The nerve damage, as Dr. Ziegler explained it, is devastating. But I’ll tell you that I was a little serious.”

“Well, noted.” Now McCree had a reason to wonder what Hanzo looked like. “I’m starvin’. Do you eat?”

“Yes. Alone,” Genji replied. “I can make you something.”

“You really don’t have to. I can take care of myself.”

“I know. As you said, I’m bored.”

 

* * *

 

Strange as the Shimadas were, McCree fell into a routine. There was an old man, Rearden, who’d drop by in the mornings with food, and he’d take McCree into Baltimore and back for a dollar. Rearden called the Shimada brothers ‘the boys,’ speaking of them with fondness. The servants’ disappearance hadn’t scared him off; he insisted that they must’ve flown off somewhere instead of sticking around for the family’s decline. McCree didn’t correct him, and Rearden didn’t ask what McCree had come to the house for. Either Rearden was lying to himself because the truth left him short of a job, or willfully blind out of fondness for the Shimadas.

Drinking and gambling in the city was about the only thing keeping McCree from falling into the Shimada house’s derangement. The evenings were filled with empty waiting for Hanzo in the garden, looking forward to nothing but dinner. Genji had warmed up enough to share meals with McCree, tilting up his mask just enough so he could eat.  

After five days of nothing, McCree felt defeated. It wasn’t too unusual to flub a job because the monster wouldn’t show. Half the time, there hadn’t been a monster to start with. Whenever that happened, McCree spun a story about defeating a ferocious demon by the skin of his teeth and pocketed the cash. But McCree felt bad for Genji, stuck in an empty mansion with no better company than his brother.

The smell of incense wafting down the hall made McCree halt on his way to bed. At first he assumed Genji must have lit it, except they had just spoken in the library. Following the scent led him to the family shrine. He’d been avoiding the room, unsure of how to handle the Shimadas’ religion. Crossing himself and bending at the knee wasn’t going to cut it for Buddha.

Hanzo was kneeling before the shrine. In the near darkness, McCree almost missed that Hanzo’s skin was gray, with small tusks pushing at his lips and white, empty eyes. A tattoo of a snarling demon covered most of his left arm and exposed chest, reminding McCree of the hell scroll in the Shimadas’ parlor. And to top it all off, Hanzo was dressed for a whole other continent than Genji; probably another time too, since McCree doubted modern Japanese gentlemen went about in a state of warrior dishabille. McCree wasn’t sure what he had expected, but Hanzo wasn’t quite it. Well, score for Hanzo being right about McCree’s interest being piqued. 

“I had hoped you would have given up by now,” Hanzo said.

“I’m a stubborn fella,” McCree replied, trying to keep his eyes on Hanzo’s face. Hanzo was stouter than his little brother, which was bad news for McCree. He always did favor a man who could throw him around the room. “You still eavesdropping on me and Genji?”

“Genji is not himself.”

“Neither are you, or so I’ve heard.” The joke went unappreciated. “Why’d you kill the servants?”

“They were an accident. I was…” Hanzo picked his next word carefully as he gazed at the golden figure in the shrine. “New, at being what I am. Hunger is a terrible master. I’ve learned there is no satisfying it, but I would still dearly love to have you under my teeth.”

Someone with half a lick of sense would be scared. McCree wasn’t. “Then what? Gut me and swallow my liver? Crack my bones for the marrow?”

That finally got Hanzo to face him. “Don’t mock me.”

McCree wouldn’t let Hanzo disappear for a week again. "I'm not. You're the first demon I’ve met who’s up for chit-chat, so I’ve got a lot of questions built up. Someone close to me ended up a little like you.”

“Did you kill him?”

He probably should have. “I want to help him.” Carefully, McCree moved a little further into Hanzo’s space, leaning on the doorframe and crossing his arms. “What’d Ziegler do to Genji?”

“She defied nature. My brother cannot live better than a half-life now—he’s locked in this house, as I am.”

McCree held himself back from saying that a half-life was better than none. Hanzo was probably thinking it, anyway. “Ziegler worked on my friend. He turned out a hell of a lot worse than Genji.”

“Perhaps Ziegler learned a little from her mistakes, but not enough.” Turning his face back to the shrine, Hanzo said, “You’ve disturbed the harmony of this house.”

“The harmony of Genji actin’ like a monk and you stomping around the garden?”

The start of a sneer curled Hanzo’s lip. “Our family tragedy will not help you save your friend.”

Damn him. “Can you blame me for tryin’?”

“You should just shoot me instead of wasting my time.”

Fate had a funny sense of humor. The first demon who wanted to be killed, and McCree couldn't kill him.'

“That’s not what I was hired to do.”

“Do you value your life over a contract?” Before McCree could work up the right reply, Hanzo slammed him against the wall. Hanzo had put him into the wrong sort of hold, using his forearm to pin McCree by the throat while his other hand immobilized McCree’s left wrist. He was too good of a fighter to leave McCree’s gun hand free by accident. “Answer quickly,” Hanzo gritted out, “Jesse McCree. The smell of flesh pulls at my mind.”

“I don’t have to defend myself against you.” Though with his wrist starting to go numb, McCree was tempted. “Kill me, and you lose your best chance of catching the bullet you want so bad.”

“You are unbearable _._ ”

“I’ve been nothin’ but friendly, and all it’s gotten me is manhandled and sniffed like a Sunday brisket.”

Hanzo’s response was to press upwards with his forearm, cutting off some of McCree’s air. Willing himself mild, McCree only shifted up onto the balls of his feet to breathe better. “You should at least kiss me if you want to keep at this,” said McCree.

The last thing McCree expected Hanzo to do was take him at his word. But Hanzo’s lips were on his, and McCree finally had a little fear, because his skin was hot as a furnace. At the first touch of fangs against his lips, McCree opened his mouth. All the while, McCree felt more than he could hear the rumbling growl, like a wolf over a kill, as Hanzo kept kissing him, deep and slow. Like they’d known each other longer than fifteen minutes of arguing.    

If McCree got eaten, he’d certainly brought it on himself.

“There,” said Hanzo, moving not one inch away from McCree. Christ have mercy. “Now repay my _courtesy_ by drawing your weapon.”

“Much as I like your idea of courtesy—nah.”

“Shoot me, damn you!” Hanzo closed his hand on McCree’s gun and tried to take it. Since Hanzo wanted a fight, McCree would give him a fight. He wrenched his gun away from Hanzo by twisting his wrist, hard. In another two seconds they were wrestling on the floor, making an ungodly racket that was sure to bring Genji running. Whose side would he take?

Hanzo elbowed McCree on the side of the head, which had to be about the worst way a conversation could turn from kissing. Ear ringing, he barely heard Genji calling out “Mr. McCree?” Hanzo’s weight was suddenly off him, and the man himself gone like vapor. That didn’t stop Genji from swearing a blue streak in Japanese and giving the wainscoting a savage kick it neither deserved nor survived.

McCree drew himself into a sitting position and took off one glove so he could pat at his head. His fingers came away sticky with blood, but it didn’t feel too serious. Genji was still going. It was, quite frankly, impressive.

When he’d finally exhausted his cuss dictionary, Genji kneeled by McCree and asked, “Did he hurt you badly?”

“You Shimadas have one hell of a temper,” McCree replied, pushing Genji’s hand away when he tried to inspect the injury himself. “I’m fine. We were just chippin’ away at our good progress with a spirited disagreement. I started it, mostly.”

“Allow me to help you up.” Genji offered his hand, pulling McCree to his feet with more strength than he should have had, those little steam vents at his shoulders going off again.

“Why thank you, Mr. Shimada. Would you mind translatin’ some of what you said just now?”

Genji tilted his head, which McCree had learned to take as a smile. “I called my brother the stubbornest droplet of piss on piss island, floating on piss ocean.”

What a fine thing to call a man. “I’ve been here a week and now I’m finally learnin’ some Japanese. Give me the next stanza while I fix up my head.”  

 

* * *

 

McCree was not above leveraging Genji’s guiltiness into getting him to break out some bourbon. And to McCree’s delighted surprise, Genji even joined him shot for shot. However, Genji was out of practice, and he’d barely worked through his first crop of vulgarity (“You must say _ahou_ with great conviction,” Genji said, “or he won’t feel properly insulted”) before he curled up in a chair and fell asleep.

Standing over Genji, McCree kept thinking of pushing up his mask. McCree could see how Reyes might have turned out, if only Ziegler had gotten more practice in first. But Genji had taken enough shit without having McCree break his trust too, so McCree took the nearly empty bottle of bourbon with him and walked into the parlor.

The gaslights illuminated that dreadful scroll. This time his eyes were drawn to the gray-skinned demon at the scroll’s center. It was shoving people in its mouth by the fistful while it crushed sinners beneath its clawed feet. Well, luckily Hanzo seemed to have gotten over his eating problem.

There was no helping the Shimadas. Their past held them too tightly. The best thing for McCree to do would be to tell Genji that he was sorry he couldn’t finish the job. But thinking of leaving the brothers to their loneliness made McCree’s gut churn. Getting attached to people had always been a raw deal for McCree, and that never changed. Reyes, Amari, Morrison, even his own ma—they’d all left, or needed leaving.

Damn it. McCree finished the bourbon and shambled upstairs to his room, more angry than drunk. There was a familiar shape silhouetted against the unseasonably open window. McCree lit the bedside lamp, flinching against the sudden flood of light. 

“Ain’t it just my luck, to run into you again so quickly,” McCree muttered.

“This used to be my room,” Hanzo replied. “Here’s where I dreamed of building an empire with Genji as my right hand.”

“He wouldn’t have ever wanted that.” McCree considered tucking himself into bed and drawing the sheet up without another word. Instead, he set his gun on the nightstand and joined Hanzo at the window.

“I could never understand him. I loved him, and I wronged him.”

“He’s your brother. You still love him.” Though McCree, being an only child, was mostly ignorant of the obligations of blood. He’d scraped together his own brothers and sisters from who was around him.

“Genji is dead. What walks through our house is not my brother. You would know that, had you met him while he was alive.”

“You’re only sayin’ that because you don’t want to stop beatin’ yourself up,” McCree said.

“Do you think I can? Is the black mark of fratricide supposed to fade? I would be even less of a man if I tried to go forward.”

McCree resisted asking Hanzo how he thought he could go downhill from being a cannibal demon. “And your guilt’s got Genji locked up like a canary.”

“Like a sparrow,” Hanzo replied softly. “It was his nickname, because he was such a small, talkative child. We said he flit from person to person like a sparrow, singing for whomever would listen. Then greed made us cut out his tongue. No—greed made _me_ do it.” Hanzo frowned, looking out the window rather than facing McCree. Clenching his fists, Hanzo said, “I would do anything to give Genji his voice back. But I cannot. Everything that I thought was important—the clan, custom, my own selfish ambitions—is nothing compared to my brother’s life.”

“He could have one again if the two of you left this place.”

“Ah yes, a mechanical Turk and his monster brother would be welcome wherever they went. It will be no problem the next time I lose control of myself and make a meal of someone.”

Hanzo’s stubbornness was a damn headache. “You held yourself back with me.”

“Barely,” Hanzo said, some of the hunger he’d spoken of slipping into his tone. “I wanted to go further.”

“You do make being eaten sound mighty tempting to a man.”

Raising one eyebrow, Hanzo asked, “Still confident I won’t hurt you?”

McCree was _mostly_ confident. It’d been stupid of him to leave his gun by the bed, but he had to show Hanzo trust if he wanted to get some in return. McCree nodded, and Hanzo pushed him back against the wall with one hand—giving McCree the advantage again before he pressed his mouth to McCree’s neck and licked the artery there, making McCree’s pulse jump.

“You’re afraid,” Hanzo said.

“Don’t pay that any mind.”

Hanzo fisted his hand in McCree’s shirt and yanked downwards, his claws nicking off each button. McCree swallowed and kept his hands flat against the wall, letting Hanzo see that he wouldn’t try to stop him. Fearing that Hanzo would turn him into minced beef wasn’t the first thing on McCree’s mind, which Hanzo felt when he dragged his hand over the crotch of McCree’s jeans.

“What if,” asked Hanzo, “I put my mouth here?”

McCree’s dick and his brain had very different opinions on that. “That’s askin’ quite a lot.”

“I am _very_ good at it.” Then Hanzo smirked, and McCree’s fading good sense sacked out for the night.

“Well when you put it like that, I won’t be the lunatic to tell you no.”

Hanzo kissed McCree again as he unzipped McCree’s fly, thankfully taking care with his claws this time. Then he licked a hungry line down McCree’s chest, along the skin he’d bared by ruining his shirt. McCree felt a bit like a holiday roast slapped down in front of a starving man. Hanzo went on his knees, his unnatural eyes flicking up to watch McCree as he slowly took him into his mouth.

“You are,” McCree said, burying his hands in Hanzo’s hair, “proving to be an honest man, Hanzo Shimada.”

 

* * *

 

The late rising sun took its sweet time waking McCree up. He was actually warm, instead of suffering the wet cold of Maryland in December. McCree turned over to ease the crick in his neck and discovered that the fix for East coast weather was Hanzo Shimada. Holding his breath, McCree looked over the newly human color of Hanzo’s skin. The demon tattoo had been replaced with a dragon, which seemed like it was slithering around McCree’s waist where Hanzo had stretched his arm over him.  

Finally, McCree’s dick had gotten him out of trouble instead of causing more. Hanzo stirred, frowning before he opened his eyes. For a moment, McCree saw Hanzo as he ought to be. Then the curse came over him again, taking away his brown eyes and spreading like ink over his skin.

“It happens every time I fall asleep,” Hanzo said, drawing back from McCree so he could sit up. “Don’t flatter yourself by thinking you nearly cured me.”

“Damn—I thought we really had something there.”

Hanzo chuckled as he deftly pulled his hair back into a ponytail and tied it with ribbon. “Your optimism continues to go unrewarded.”

“Not entirely.”

McCree decided to stay in bed instead of braving the morning chill, though Hanzo took his share of the warmth with him when he left to dress.

“Hanzo, do you know why you’re human when you sleep?”

“I’ve no idea,” Hanzo replied, tying his sash with an irritated flick of his wrist. “If you have any theories, keep them to yourself.”

“I’ll share them with Genji, then.”

“He’d be delighted,” Hanzo said, and was out the door before McCree could work up a good parting shot.

“Guess I’ll wait a few days before sending out wedding invitations,” McCree muttered, fumbling for a smoke and the dregs of the bourbon.

He did have a theory. Since sleep made Hanzo human, he had to have some degree of control over his shape. Real demons didn’t turn all doe-eyed like Hanzo when they slept, and McCree had never seen a single one who could hold an illusion after getting knocked out.

There was no curse on Hanzo, other than his own. McCree hadn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of convincing Hanzo of that. And what good would it do? Hanzo would just have more guilt he couldn’t ever clean off.

Talking to people was proving a bad business, but there was nothing for it but to press on.

 

* * *

 

McCree took extra care in making himself look decent before he went downstairs, seeing as how he didn’t want to advertise his nocturnal misadventure. He avoided Genji anyways, needing to get away from the Shimadas so he could think properly. Rearden was waiting outside at the usual time, and took McCree’s dollar with a smile and not a single question.

More and more, the house felt alive. Looking back at it from Rearden’s carriage, the windows resembled the bottomless, longing eyes of a ghost. “Can you make the horses go a little faster?” McCree asked.

“Sure I could. But there’s no need.”

It was hard to argue with that one. McCree was just antsy, and the roads were mostly mud. “You think kindly of the Shimadas, don’t you?”

Rearden turned his head, seeming to finally take McCree’s measure. “Someone’s got to. What about you?”       

“I wish I knew how to help them out of the mess they’re in.”

“I’ve been with the family since Japan,” Rearden said, after deciding that McCree passed muster. “I was one of General Perry’s crew at the Convention of Kanagawa. Shimada-sama offered me a job teaching his sons English, since Lady Shimada didn’t trust the Jesuits not to turn her boys to Christ. They weren’t a happy household, except for little Genji. Shimada-sama treated him like spun glass—moved the whole family to America just to keep him safe from the clan’s business. Didn’t work.”

“So you know what happened to Genji?”

“Hanzo did,” Rearden replied. “What he did, I don’t want to know. He brought hell into that house, and it’ll never leave.”

McCree thought back to the cabbie’s words: not a thing happens to the undeserving. Hanzo and Genji couldn’t save each other from the horror of what had been done, yet neither of them could move on alone. They were bound to the house, living ghosts in their own quiet hell. “Turn around,” McCree said, squeezing Rearden’s shoulder. “I know how to fix this.”

 

* * *

 

Genji jumped in his seat when McCree stormed into the library. “We have to burn everything down,” McCree said, all in one breath. 

“What?” Genji rose, putting down his book with extra care. “Why?”

“You’re trapped here.”

“I know that,” Genji replied irritably.

“No, _you_ are trapped _here_. In this house. Where did you die, Genji?”

Genji crossed his arms as if he might run or strike. Good. “Not far from here. Do you want me to show you the blood stain?”

McCree shook his head. “That doesn’t matter. It all has to be destroyed. Hanzo is in a demon’s form because he thinks that’s who he is, and he’ll stay like that forever unless you force him to stop hidin’ by your grave.”

“This house is our inheritance.” His voice was wavering; Genji didn’t lie to himself like Hanzo did, and had to be thinking about how the house was always standing in the way of anything ever changing.

“You said yourself that don’t care for money.” 

“My books,” Genji said, his shoulders sinking. He turned towards the shelves and took out at least a dozen volumes, all the titles in languages McCree couldn’t understand. When he couldn’t hold any more, he dumped them in McCree’s arms. “Wait for me at the gates.”

“Don’t you want help?”

“No. I appreciate your insight, but what I must do is not for an outsider. Please go, and don’t let my books get wet. They are irreplaceable.”

So while Genji introduced the house to cleansing fire, McCree had to stand in the bushes. Fair enough; he didn’t favor being around when Hanzo figured out what was going on anyhow. McCree took one last look at the Shimada’s hell scroll, eying the flames with new appreciation. 

“ _Vaya con Dios_ ,” McCree said under his breath. He would’ve tipped his hat to the demon at the scroll’s center, if only he had a free hand.

The sun was just starting to set when McCree took a seat in the garden, carefully laying the books down on a mostly dry stone. Though he was upwind, he could smell the beginnings of the fire. A big house like that was more paint and polish than wood, and it would reek as it burned. It wasn’t long before smoke came out darkly from the windows, pouring past the shutters as if the house itself was weeping. The house had its own misery, McCree supposed.

Genji and Hanzo should’ve come out by now. Flames were licking at the door and the roof was starting to collapse—the hallways were doubtless flooded with smoke.  McCree cupped his hands over his mouth and called out, “Mr. Shimada! Genji!” Heart pounding, McCree tried again. “Hanzo, you damn fool!”

Nothing. McCree knew he had to rescue them, but his eyes burned just looking at the furnace Genji had made out of the house. It would be death to step inside.

McCree thought of Reyes. Morrison had been all for killing him, when they saw the monster Ziegler had raised out of their old friend. McCree used to think he’d been brave, standing up to Morrison and letting Reyes escape. But McCree had been a coward. He was too frightened that Reyes would kill him if he followed, so he didn’t. And then he read the paper a few weeks later, saw the trail of bodies Reyes left behind, and convinced himself that he’d done the best he could.

He pulled his serape up over his nose and mouth, taking the first steps towards the house.

The house screamed. It was just the sound of cracking wood, McCree told himself. He stumbled back, feeling the heat trying to suck in more air, and him with it. Everything was collapsing, too fast for anyone but a suicide to try entering the house. McCree still might have tried, if the house hadn’t screamed again.

Impossibly, the house folded in on itself, curling up like a burnt scrap of paper before it turned to ash. When the smoke cleared, there was nothing but a pit where the foundations had stood.

And two survivors, holding each other tightly.

 

* * *

 

The wait at the Maryland National Bank was intolerable. It had Hanzo fidgeting like a whore in church, pulling irritably at his necktie while he shared a bench with McCree.

“I hate Western clothes,” he muttered. “I feel like I’m being strangled.”

“You could just not wear a tie,” McCree replied.

“No.”

“Suit yourself.”

Hanzo frowned and loosened his necktie. “Very funny,” he said, and McCree thought he might even have meant it.

Genji was holding a thin valise when he rejoined them. “Here is your payment, Mr. McCree. It took the bank some time to count out fifty thousand dollars.”

Eyes widening, McCree took the valise. Fifty thousand dollars ought to feel heavier. “This is far more than we agreed to.”

“This is all we have left. I would give you more if we had it.”

“You can’t do this, Mr. Shimada,” McCree pleaded, trying to hand the valise over again. Hanzo stopped him. 

“My brother and I came to a decision,” said Hanzo. “There is nothing left for us in Maryland. We want to go west with you, and help you find your friend.”

“But why?” McCree asked.

“We have very particular knowledge of monsters,” Genji replied, “and I’d like to see Angela again, to thank her.”

“I don’t know what to say.” McCree looked down at the valise, trying to wrap his mind around what the Shimadas were willing to do for him.

“If it makes you feel better,” Hanzo said, leaning in, “we could split the money three ways.”

“Hanzo!” Genji hissed.   

McCree had to laugh. “That sounds fair to me. It’d take me too long to drink away all that cash on my own.”

Hanzo took over after that, undoing Genji’s grand gesture with the valise by marching back to the bank and putting most of the sum into bonds for the three of them. He’d probably been thinking of that the whole time he was treating his necktie like a python. Humanity put a nice shine on Hanzo, though he was still mule-headed. Both the Shimadas were, which meant traveling with two of them would be like herding cats.

But it beat being alone by a long shot. McCree might be good at playing the tall, handsome stranger act, but he’d been happier in Blackwatch—hell, even Deadlock—than tramping around with only his hat for company.

“Heroism never works out for the hero, kid,” Reyes had once told him. “Sometimes it doesn’t even work out for who you saved.”

Time to prove the old man wrong.

**Author's Note:**

> The biggest thank you goes out to my beta, Gileonnen, for helping shape this story into something decent. I took some inspiration from Suzannart's [Monster Hunter AU](http://suzannart.tumblr.com/tagged/monster-hunter-au) and her continued devotion to the Oni Hanzo skin, though Halloween is long past.
> 
> The title is a tip of the hat to Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher." Hanzo's reference to cutting out the sparrow's tongue comes from the fable of the [Tongue-Cut Sparrow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shita-kiri_Suzume), and it wouldn't surprise me if that's what was on Blizz's mind as well when they chose Genji's nickname.
> 
> Gileonnen also illustrated Genji standing in front of the family hell scroll and it is amazing and you should all check it out [here](http://gileonnen.tumblr.com/post/155459062718/pausing-in-front-of-the-scroll-with-his-hands). AHHH and then Nisie drew Genji and McCree hanging out and look at it [here](http://nisiedrawsstuff.tumblr.com/post/156013893847/a-moody-drawing-for-my-lovely-sathinfection-for) and then die with me.


End file.
